Passing of Wally Rose
By Ed Berlin
... The end of an era ...
Wally Rose, a key figure in the resurrection of ragtime in the early 1940s, died last Sunday, January 12. He was 83. I received a letter from Peter Mintun last week telling that Wally was then in a pleasant convalescent home in Walnut Creek, CA, enjoying the view. It closes, "He's had a long, successful and colorful life and I think he's just going to relax now and let the rest of the world go by."
An obituary has been written that outlines his career, and is expected to appear in a few days in the New York Times. The following is my personal memoir of Wally.
I first became aware of him in the mid-1950s when I heard his brilliant recording of "Maple Leaf Rag." My main musical interest in those days was be-bop, but this performance was too spectacular to ignore.
I met Wally for the first time around 1989 at a Scott Joplin festival in Sedalia. We were introduced by the late Al Rose (unrelated), who referred to himself and Wally as "the Rose brothers". Later that evening, as I was entering the dining room with a group, I noticed Wally was alone & invited him to join us. He thanked me, but politely declined. Seeing him a few minutes later sitting alone, I again invited him, and this time he accepted. Some days later, by which time we had become friends, he confided to me that he had wanted to accept my original invitation, but that he was reluctant to impose himself on us.
"Impose himself?!" We were all thrilled to be in his company. But that's how Wally was: he did not recognize his own greatness and was ever the modest gentleman.
And what a great musician he was, with marvelous insights. Though he would never openly criticize another performer, he might raise questions that few in ragtime even consider: how, for example, a particular performance affects the shape of a piece. Talking music with him was like taking a graduate seminar. When I played for him, he would ask questions like, "What is the purpose of changing your dynamic at that point? What does it do to the piece?" That it created variety was not an acceptable response; he wanted to know why variety was needed at that point and insisted that one consider how each section relates to everything else in the piece. It was as if I were studying a Brahms Intermezzo.
On the last day of that festival, I was having dinner with Wally, Glenn Jenks, and Peter Lundberg. While we were talking, Peter was sketching out some music. He then turned to Glenn and suggested he continue the piece. From Glenn it went to Wally, and finally to me: a four-strain rag, with each of us contributing one strain. Wally's is clearly the best strain. Glenn later published our joint effort as "Sedalia Joys."
Through the next few years, I met Wally at a few festivals, and we occasionally corresponded and spoke on the phone. About five years ago, when my wife and I were in San Francisco, we stayed with Wally for a few days. We were overwhelmed with his hospitality: he planned our entire weekend, had gotten tickets, and the like.
On our excursions, I noticed that Wally seemingly never passed up an opportunity to talk to an attractive woman. I suppose his age helped in this regard, as no one seemed to take offense. As we were having lunch in a restaurant in San Francisco one day, he asked our young waitress her name. "Solace," she responded, pronouncing it SOE-LACE. We did double-takes. "How did you get such an unusual name," Wally asked? "My father named me after a song he liked," she answered. "Was it by Scott Joplin?" "Yes, I think so." "Have you ever heard the music." "My boyfriend bought me the recording." "Do you like it?" "It's alright."
Nor had age dampened his curiosity about music. He was, at this time, practicing the technique-intensive sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti.
I last saw Wally at the '95 West Coast Ragtime Festival, in Fresno. He was booked for the event, but was not feeling up to it and decided to leave soon after arriving. Fortunately, we ran into each other before he departed, and so spent a few more hours together.
With Wally's passing, an era has come to a close.
Ed Berlin
[ Other notes appeared in the Digests for 970107 and 970108.
[ Thanks, Ed, for sharing this with us. -- Robbie
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(Message sent Fri 17 Jan 1997, 14:41:00 GMT, from time zone GMT-0500.) |
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